Electronic devices, including portable electronic devices, have gained widespread use and can provide a variety of functions including, for example, telephonic, electronic messaging and other personal information manager (PIM) application functions. Portable electronic devices can include several types of devices including mobile stations such as simple cellular telephones, smart telephones, wireless PDAs, and laptop computers with wireless 802.11 or Bluetooth capabilities. These devices run on a wide variety of networks from data-only networks such as Mobitex and DataTAC to complex voice and data networks such as GSM/GPRS, CDMA, EDGE, UMTS and CDMA2000 networks.
Such devices often employ a touch-sensitive display. A tactile mechanism is typically incorporated into the touch-sensitive display to provide a tactile feedback when a user interacts with the touch-sensitive display. For example, there may be mechanical switch incorporated into the touch-sensitive display to mimic the feel of a physical keyboard. Other mechanisms may use a piezoelectric assembly that provides tactile feedback. However, such piezoelectric assemblies may crack, for example due to mechanical stress, and the associated loss of electrical connectivity in portions of the piezoelectric assembly may result in an unfavourable tactile feedback.